Daily Thoughts 03/31/2012

Portrait of James Boswell by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1785

Daily Thoughts 03/31/2012

I am reading more of The Consent of the Networked. The author is writing about the United States policy of "Internet Freedom" which is aimed at making the internet more open worldwide.  Part of it includes providing software to circumvent censorship in places like Iran and China.

I spent some more time on Lynda.com watching videos on time management and Dreamweaver CS5.  I also watched part of a documentary on Richard Koci Hernandez who is a multimedia journalist at an organization called Mission Local http://www.missionlocal.org

 Tracking Amazon, New Vonnegut E-book Takes #1 Spot
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/51308-tracking-amazon-new-vonnegut-e-book-takes-1-spot.html
I enjoyed the book.  The length was just right. I could finish it in an evening.  I find reading novellas much easier on e-books than in print.

Mayor Bloomberg's Pitch to New York Startups
http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/mayor-bloomberg-pitches-new-york-to-startups_b35905
I saw this at the NY Tech Meetup.  It was kind of interesting.

I spent some time reading through the Computers In Libraries Conference and the Internet Librarian Conference.  I found one new search engine that was interesting Blekko which is supposed to be spam free.

I also got a complete resume review done by Ellen Mehling of MyMetro today.  I had a chance to make some minor improvements.  It was worth doing.

Daily Thoughts 03/28/2012

Portrait of Desiderius Esrasmus, engraved in Nuremberg, Germany., Albrecht Durer, 1526

Daily Thoughts 03/28/2012

This morning, I joined My Metro.http://metro.org/individual-membership/ 

I spent some more time on Lynda.com listening to training videos on resume writing, effective meetings, and CSS.  I think I have the general idea of how CSS and HTML work, but will need to go over what I have learned in a more hands on environment.

I read some more of The Consent of the Networked.  I am learning how Google+ and Facebook don't allow anonymity.  Google+ and Facebook  insist that people use real names.  In contrast, Blogger and Wordpress both allow anonymity. It makes for an interesting contrast.

I was looking a little bit more around the different book startups and found Book Riot.  They do a very good job of picking out very popular material to recommend http://www.bookriot.com

Web Bits

Gas Station Made of Recycled Books
http://greenopolis.com/goblog/green-groove/gas-station-made-recycled-books

Daily Thoughts 03/23/2012

Page with typeface samples from the Kelmscott Press, 1897, showing samples of Chaucer, Troy, and Golden Type designed by William Morris

Daily Thoughts 03/23/2012


I read some more of No Shelf Required 2.  There was a very interesting section on the digital divide.  Part of this section is about how it is important to show people how to use digital devices like e-readers.  Much like the library is the only place which some people have access to computers, it could also be one of the only places where people would have access to e-books or other electronic content like electronic magazines.  How this access is done is debatable. It was also interesting reading about accessibility and e-books.  Text to speech, description of formulas and tables for the blind, and being able to adjust font and screen size were discussed.

I also read some more of The Consent of the Networked.  There was an entire chapter on internet censorship in China which the author calls networked authoritarianism.  There was some interesting material on patriotism and hacking in the chapter on China as well.

I bought the e-book Word Hero A Fiendishly Clever Guide to Crafting the Lines That Get Laughs, Go Viral, and Live Forever by Jay Heinrich.  I saw this book on Getglue and found that it was not available in any of my local libraries.

This afternoon, I spent some time looking at different book startups, two which seemed especially interesting are http://www.valdobox.com/ which sells books by the page and http://booklr.com/ which provides data and analytics for publishers.

I spent some time this afternoon on Lynda.com watching videos on time management and resume writing.  I think they will be useful.

Web Bit

Annual Meeting, Publishers and Libraries AAP (American Association of Publishers)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21284851